SCHLESINGER’S ADMIRATION.
It was a happy chance for Wagner that a man in the prominent position of Schlesinger should have interested himself in a young musician, whose nature was the opposite of his own. A shrewd music-seller, with an eye always to the main chance, and an art enthusiast in close intimacy, was a strange spectacle, only to be accounted for by the fact that opposite natures attract, whereas similar characters repel each other. Schlesinger admired in Wagner the very qualities of earnestness and enthusiasm which were lacking in his own being. Meyerbeer was his deity. It was one day in a mail coach that I found myself the travelling-companion of Schlesinger. He talked the whole day, of Meyerbeer principally. He said that Meyerbeer showed a commercial sagacity in composing his works which was remarkable. Behind the stage he was as painstaking with artists and themise-en scèneas he was careful in the comfortable seating of critics. Not the smallest journalist, nor even their relations, failed to be seated well. Meyerbeer was the embodiment of the art ofsavoir faire. It seemed to me, then, a curious contradiction in my companion’s character, that he could regard such phases in a man’s character as wonderful, and at the same time have listened to the intemperate outpourings of the earnest Wagner. But it was so.
At the back of Schlesinger’s music shop was a room where artists casually met for conversation. Wagner,owing to the “musical arrangements” for the firm and being writer for Schlesinger’s “Gazette Musicale,” was a frequent visitor. He met many known men and noted their speech. It all tended one way. The French were light-hearted, persiflage was a principal subject of their composition, and for such a public only light dainties were to be provided. They wanted the semblance and not the reality. Amusement first and truth after. His own romances, penned, as he hoped, in a fittingly light manner, were not light enough and as a consequence were not pleasing enough.
WAGNER AND BERLIOZ.
With Berlioz his relations were less happy. The two men met often, but were mutually antagonistic. They admired each other always. Both were serious and earnest, but their friendship was never intimate. In after-life the same strained bearing towards each other was maintained. From close observation of the two men under my roof, at the same table, and under circumstances when they were open heart with each other, I should say however that the constraint arose purely from their antagonistic individualities. Berlioz was reserved, self-possessed, and dignified. His clear, transparent delivery was as the rhythmic cadence of a fountain. Wagner was boisterous, effusive, and his words leaped forth as the rushing of a mountain torrent. Wagner undoubtedly in Paris learned much from Berlioz. The new and refined orchestration taught, or perhaps I should rather say indicated, to Wagner what could be done with the orchestra. Indeed, Wagner has said that the instrumentation of Berlioz influenced him, but disagrees with the use to which the orchestra was put. To Berlioz it was the end: to Wagner, a means.Berlioz expended his ideas in special colouristic effects, whilst Wagner’s pre-eminent desire was truthfulness of situation, the orchestra serving as the medium for the delineation of his ideas. Wagner paid Berlioz a tribute in Paris by declaring that he was distinguished from his Parisian colleagues, that he did not compose for money, and then in the same breath sarcastically asserts that “he lacks all sense of beauty.” This I think unfair, nor do I consider it as representing what Wagner really wished to convey. Berlioz was undoubtedly possessed of ideality, his intentions were noble and earnest, but in their execution he fell short of his conceptions. However, he towers above all French composers for earnestness of purpose and strength of intellect.
Although Wagner often and strongly disagreed with Heine’s judgment in matters of art, yet with one, the poet’s racy notice dated April, 1840, published in “Lutèce,” a miscellaneous collection of letters upon artistic and social life in Paris, he felt that the pungent criticism was not altogether wide of the truth. Wagner kept the notice, and when he and Berlioz were in this country together in 1855, he gave it to me, remarking that though grotesque it was in the main faithful. As it is very interesting I reproduce it:—
We will begin to-day by Berlioz, whose first concert has served as the début of the musical season, as the overture, so to speak. His productions, more or less new, which have been performed, found a just tribute of applause, and even the most indolent present were aroused by the force of his genius, which revels in creations of the “grand master.” There is a flapping of wings, but it is not of an ordinary bird, it is a colossal nightingale, a skylark of the grandeur of the eagle, as it existed, it is said, in the primitive world. Yes, the music of Berlioz, in general, has for me something primitive, if notantediluvian, and it makes me think of extinct gigantic beasts, of mammoths, of fabulous worlds, and of fabulous sins; indeed, of impossibilities piled one upon another. His magic accents recall to us Babylon, the suspended gardens of Semiramis, the marvels of Nineveh, the bold edifices of Mizraim, such as are seen in the pictures of the Englishman, Martin. Indeed, if we seek for analogous productions in the realms of the painter’s art, we find a perfect resemblance with the elective Berlioz and the eccentric Englishman. The same outrageous sentiment of the prodigious, of the excessive, of material immensity. With one brilliant effect of light and darkness, with the other thundery instrumentation: with one little melody, with the other little colour, in both a perfect absence of beauty and of naïveté. Their works are neither antique nor romantic, they recall to us neither the Greek pagan, nor the mediæval catholic, but seem to lift us to the highest point of Assyrico-Babylonio-Egyptian architecture, and bear us back to those poems in stone which trace in the pyramids the passion of humanity, the eternal mystery of the world.
We will begin to-day by Berlioz, whose first concert has served as the début of the musical season, as the overture, so to speak. His productions, more or less new, which have been performed, found a just tribute of applause, and even the most indolent present were aroused by the force of his genius, which revels in creations of the “grand master.” There is a flapping of wings, but it is not of an ordinary bird, it is a colossal nightingale, a skylark of the grandeur of the eagle, as it existed, it is said, in the primitive world. Yes, the music of Berlioz, in general, has for me something primitive, if notantediluvian, and it makes me think of extinct gigantic beasts, of mammoths, of fabulous worlds, and of fabulous sins; indeed, of impossibilities piled one upon another. His magic accents recall to us Babylon, the suspended gardens of Semiramis, the marvels of Nineveh, the bold edifices of Mizraim, such as are seen in the pictures of the Englishman, Martin. Indeed, if we seek for analogous productions in the realms of the painter’s art, we find a perfect resemblance with the elective Berlioz and the eccentric Englishman. The same outrageous sentiment of the prodigious, of the excessive, of material immensity. With one brilliant effect of light and darkness, with the other thundery instrumentation: with one little melody, with the other little colour, in both a perfect absence of beauty and of naïveté. Their works are neither antique nor romantic, they recall to us neither the Greek pagan, nor the mediæval catholic, but seem to lift us to the highest point of Assyrico-Babylonio-Egyptian architecture, and bear us back to those poems in stone which trace in the pyramids the passion of humanity, the eternal mystery of the world.
A NATIONAL DRAMA.
Of the other notabilities in the art world with whom Richard Wagner came into contact in Paris, the chief were Halévy, Vieuxtemps, Scribe, and Kietz. For Halévy he had great admiration. His music was honest. It had a national flavour in it. It was of the French, French. There was a visible effort to reflect in tones the mind and sentiment of a people which was highly meritorious. He was the legitimate descendant of Auber, the founder of a really national French opera. If conventionality proved too strong for Auber, Halévy made less effort to throw off the thraldom. The latter was wholly in the hands of opera directors, singers, ballet masters, etc. Had he been a strong man, an artist of determination, governed more with the noble desire to elevate his glorious art than of pleasing popular favourites, he might have done great things. Operacomique represented truly the national taste of the Gauls. Auber and Halévy were the men who, assisted by Boildieu, could have laid a sure foundation, but conventionality proved too powerful for all three.
It is not difficult to understand why Wagner so constantly made a “national music-drama” the subject of discourse. In his judgment a drama reflecting the culture and life of a people was the noblest teacher of men. It appeals direct to the heart and understanding. It is the mirror of themselves, purified, idealized, and as such cannot fail to be the most powerful and effective moral instructor. “National drama” was an undying subject with Wagner. His constant effort was the founding of a national art for his own compatriots. It was the ambition of his life, so that after the first and so grandly successful festival performance of the “Nibelungen” in the Bayreuth theatre, 1876, his address to the spectators began, “My children, you have here a really German art.” No wonder, then, that he spoke in Paris with such earnestness of the absence of a true national opera, and of the destruction of such as there promised to be through the attention lavished on Rossini and Donizetti. Halévy’s “La Juive,” a grand opera, Wagner considered a particularly praiseworthy work, and thought it promised great things. So much did he consider it worthy of notice, that when later on he became conductor of the Dresden Opera House, he devoted great attention to its production and adequate rendering.
Vieuxtemps, Wagner met occasionally, but was on less intimate terms with him. He admired him as a virtuoso on the violin; he had a grand style, but in hisconversation and writings he was without any distinguishing or attractive ability, adhering so steadfastly to the rigid classical form that there was little sympathy between them. In Scribe he admired the skill and esprit of his stage works. He saw that the Frenchman most accurately gauged the taste of his public and was dexterous in the manipulation of his matter. Scribe was not then at anything like the zenith of his power, yet was possessed of a finish and delicacy in writing that Wagner admired. Lastly, Kietz, a painter from Germany, of a certain merit, was perhaps one of his most intimate friends. He painted a portrait of Richard Wagner which is now regarded as very excellent. Full of fun, his jocularity harmonized completely with Wagner’s own humour, and, united with Louis, the three were ever at their most comfortable and happy ease.
VIEWEDfrom an art standpoint, those dreary years of misery, spent in the centre of European gaity, were the crucial epoch of Richard Wagner’s career. Then, for the first time, was he filled with the consciousness of the complete impossibility of the French operatic stage and its kindred institutions outside France, ever becoming the platform from which he could preach his doctrine of earnestness and truth. The Paris grand opera was the hothouse of spurious art. The master who would succeed there must abandon his inspiration and make concessions to artists and to managers. He found the so-called grand opera tainted, an unreal thing which dealt not with verities, but was the handmaid of fashion. It had no heart, no living, free-flowing blood, but was a patchwork of false sentiment rendered attractive by its gorgeous spectacular frame.
But it was not at one bound that Wagner arrived at this conclusion. The turning-point was not reached until after he had himself essayed a grand opera success, and found how inadequate and imperfect fettered utterances were to free thoughts. Indeed, by degrees he discovered that realism, the prime element of the grand historic opera, was completely antagonistic to the tenderness of his own poetic instinct, idealism. He lookedtoo, to the grand opera for expression of the feelings of a people, and found works manacled by a rigid conventionality.
He had come to Paris with the “Das Liebesverbot” (the manuscript of which, by the by, I believe passed into the possession of King Ludwig of Bavaria: it would be interesting to see the score of this early work written in 1834) and a portion of “Rienzi.” His aspirations were to complete this latter in a manner worthy of the Paris stage. He attended much the productions of the opera house. He heard Auber, Halévy, Meyerbeer, Rossini, and Donizetti, and, as the months rolled by he grew sick in heart at seeing the sumptuous settings devoted to works that were paltry, mean, and artificial compared with his own.
A CHAMPION OF AUBER.
Wagner was now a young man rapidly nearing thirty winters of life. He was in a foreign land, earning a bare existence, but withal full of earnest enthusiasm and vigorous work. A thinker always, he set himself the problem in the midst of pinching poverty, why was it that an unmistakable and growing aversion for the grand opera had been awakened in him? He pondered over it. For months it exercised his mind and then, suddenly, the revolutionary spirit of the age took possession of him, and he threw over once for all preconceived operatic notions, and resolved to be no longer the slave of a form walled in by conventionality, nor the puppet of an institution like the grand opera house, controlled by innumerable anti-artistic influences. It is from this time that we date that glorious change in his art work which has made music an articulate language understood by all, whereas hitherto it had been but a lisping speech,with occasional beautiful moments undoubtedly, but for all that, an imperfect art.
Poor Wagner, what sorrows did he not pass through in 1840 and 1841! Now he has stolen into the opera house to listen to the sensuous melodies of Rossini and Meyerbeer, and afterwards wended his way home dejected and disconsolate, with his heart a prey to the bitterest pangs. He could vent a little of his imprisoned indignation in the “Gazette Musicale,” and availed himself of this channel of publicity. He fell upon Rossini and Donizetti. Why should they, aliens, dominate the French stage to the exclusion of superior native worth and pure national sentiment? In his opinion Auber was badly treated by the Parisians, “La Muette de Porticci” (Masaniello), contained germs of a real national French opera. It was a work of excellence and merited a better reception at the hands of the composer’s countrymen. “Poor Wagner!” I feel myself again and again unconsciously uttering, when I remember that his championship of Auber nearly cost him the little emolument his newspaper articles brought him, for Schlesinger administered a sharp rebuke, and told him that if he wished to enter the political arena he must write for a political and not a musical journal. That Wagner’s attitude toward Auber was based on purely artistic grounds will be admitted, I think, when it is known that during these three years of Paris life the two men never met.
But if the grand opera procured him no pleasure he was compensated by the orchestral performances at the Conservatoire de Musique. Wagner has often related an incident connected with one of his visits to themiserable rooms of the Conservatoire in the Rue Bergère, that will never fail to make affection’s chords vibrate with compassionate sympathy for the beloved master. I remember well Wagner telling the story to me. It was during his worst hours of poverty. Disappointments had fallen thick around him. For two whole days his food had been almost nothing. Hungered and wearied, he silently and unobtrusively entered the Conservatoire. The orchestra were playing the “Ninth Symphony.” What thoughts did it not recall! It was more than ten years since he had heard the symphonies of Beethoven. Then he was in his Leipzic home. How changed were all things now! But the music was the same! The old enchantment overcame him. The genius of Beethoven again dazzled his senses, and he left the concert-room broken down with grief, but more determined and with a fixity of purpose more resolute than he had had at any time during the Paris period. “It was,” he says, “as a blessed reality in the midst of a maze of shifting, gloomy dreams.” He went home invigorated with the healthy, refreshing draughts of the “Ninth Symphony,” bent upon pouring out the feelings of his early manhood, but falling sick, his original intentions were abandoned.
HIS OPINION OF THE FRENCH.
The concerts at the Conservatoire afforded him genuine pleasure. The director, Habeneck, seems to have been a zealous, painstaking artist, all works conducted evidencing the very careful study they had received at his hands. It was at the Conservatoire that Wagner’s soul of music was fed, his heart and mind satisfied, the eye was gratified by the magnificent mise-en-scene of the grand opera. These two institutions exercised avast and wholesome influence over him, though he rebelled wholly against the dicta of the grand opera. Perhaps had it not been for the violent antagonism the Paris opera excited within him, and the deep feeling of revulsion that it engendered, Richard Wagner would not so soon have come to that invaluable knowledge of himself, nor the art-fire within have glowed with such clearness and intensity.
To Wagner the Gallic character was at once the source of attraction and repulsion. He admired the light-hearted gaiety, the racy wit, and agreeable tact which seems to be the birthright of even the lowest and least educated. Such qualities were akin to his own being. At all times he sparkled with witty remarks, and as for tact, the times are without number when I have seen him display a discretion and dexterity of tact which belong only to the born diplomat. It was not tact in the common understanding of the term, but a keen sense of perceiving when to conciliate, when to hit hard, and when to stop. I have been present on occasions when his language has been so intemperate and severely sarcastic that I have expected as the only possible consequence an unpleasant dénouement; but his fine discernment, aided by undoubted skill and adroitness of speech, have produced a marvellous change, and I am convinced that the happy termination was only arrived at because of the tone of conviction in which he expressed himself. His words bore so plainly the stamp of unadulterated truth, that those who could not agree with him were captivated by his enthusiasm and earnestness. On the other hand, he was repelled by the frivolous tone with which the Parisianscharacteristically treated serious topics. There was a want of causality in them. His conception of the world with its duties and obligations was in complete contrast to theirs. Moreover, he felt they lacked true poetic sentiment. Their poesy was superficial. It was replete with grace and charm, nor was beauty occasionally wanting. But it did not well up from their hearts. They associated it closely with every action of life but it was more often the veneer than the thing itself that shone. And again, their proclivities were in favour of realism, whereas his own sentiments were entwined round a poetic ideal. It was during this Paris period that the aspiration for the ideal burst forth with an intensity that never afterwards dimmed. The longing for the ideal was no new sensation. Flashes had been observed earlier at Leipzic when under the fascination of Beethoven’s symphonies, but, ambition, love of fame, and a not unnatural youthful desire to acquire wealth had diverted him from the ideal to the real, and it was not till saddened with disappointments and sorely tried in the crucible of misfortune that he emerged purified, with a vision of his ideal beautified and enthroned on high, resolved henceforth never to tire in his efforts to achieve his purpose.
THE REVOLUTIONARY SPIRIT.
I should not omit to refer to certain observations Wagner made upon the military and police element in these early Paris years. He was a keen scrutinizer of men and manners, and failed not to observe the power wielded by the army. The French were a pageant-loving people, but were heavily burdened to maintain their large military force. Poverty was a natural result, and bitter feelings were engendered towards a governmentwhich employed the army as an awe-inspiring power towards peaceful citizens. Though the soldier was drawn from the people, yet as the unit of an army he came to be regarded as an enemy of his class. Nor was Wagner more satisfied with the police. He said he never could be brought to regard them as custodians of the peace and protectors of the rights of citizens. Instead of being well-disposed, they assumed a hostile attitude towards civilians. Perhaps these may seem items of no great importance, but to me the shrewd, perceptive Wagner of 1840-41, with his revolt against an overbearing military and police is the father of the revolutionist of 1848. It is but a short space of seven years.
With all its attendant suffering and weariness Wagner was accustomed to regard his first sojourn in Paris as the most eventful period of his life in the cause of art. There he burnt the ships of the youthful aspirant for public renown. Worldly tribulation tried and proved him, and the art genius emerged from the conflict purified and strengthened. As he says in his short autobiographical sketch, “The spirit of revolution took possession of me once forever.” As it is not an uncommon fact in history that great events have often been brought about by most trifling incidents, so now did the first step in this wondrous development arise out of an apparently unimportant conversation to which I shall shortly refer. He had come to Paris sustained by an over-sanguine conviction of compelling French admiration by a rich display of its own art proclivities. Omitting for the moment his “Faust” overture, he first completed “Rienzi,” in the all-spectacular spiritsuited to the grand opera house. Then, as far as actual production went, ensued nearly a year of sterility, only to be followed by the advent of the poetic ideal which, when once cherished, was never afterwards cast aside. It was the poet who was now asserting his power. Poesy was claiming its birthright with the tonal art, and as the holy union of the twin arts manifested itself before his seer-like vision, so the artist, Wagner, the creator of a music whose every phase glows with the blood of life, so the poet-musician clearly perceiving his ideal, strove towards its attainment and never abated his efforts to realize his object, nor turned aside from its pursuit.
It is a matter of vast interest to learn how he was led in this direction. Some months after he had been in Paris, with little prospect of obtaining a hearing at the grand opera house, and suffering the keenest pangs of poverty, he heard the “Ninth Symphony” at the Conservatoire. He had heard it years ago, but now its story, its “programme,” was clear before him. He too would write a symphony. He would speak the feelings within him, and music should be a “reality” and not the language of mysticism.
“EINE FAUST” OVERTURE.
Overburdened with such feelings as these, a few days later he entered the music shop of Schlesinger. There was news for him. The publisher had a proposition which he thought promised well for Wagner. Deeply interested in his penniless, enthusiastic compatriot, he had almost brought to a successful conclusion an arrangement by which Wagner was to write a piece for a boulevard theatre. The conditions were that the trifle should be light and showy, nothing serious, but attractive. Such an offer at any other period prior to this,Wagner said he would have gladly welcomed. The time, however, was inopportune. Unfortunately for him, but to the incalculable gain of the art, just now he was under the magnetic influence of the “Ninth Symphony.” He seems to have burst into an uncontrollable onslaught upon the trivialities that ruled the French stage. He would have none of them. Music now for him was a “blessed reality,” and the hollow fictions of the boulevard theatres were unworthy of a true artist. Schlesinger reasoned with him, urged the wisdom of accepting the offer, though at the same time uncompromising in his demand that the proposed piece must not be serious, and must be written to suit the tastes of the uneducated public. But Wagner was not to be won over, quoting the dictum of Schiller, a great favourite with him, that “the artist should not be the bantling of his period, but its teacher.” No arrangement come to, Wagner went home. It was raining heavily. Excited and wet through, he talked wildly to Minna, the result being that he was put to bed with a severe attack of erysipelas. Brooding over his position, angered with the world and himself, caring not for life, his thoughts reverted to the “Ninth Symphony,” and he, with the energy of a sick, strong-willed man, resolved to write forthwith that which should be the expression of his pent-up rage with the world, and, as by magic, he fell upon the story of Faust. To Wagner, then, as to the aged student, “Life was a burden, and death a desired consummation.” And so he plunged with his woes thick upon him into the composition, superscribing his work with the words of Faust:—
Thou God, who reigns within my heart,Alone can touch my soul.
Thou God, who reigns within my heart,Alone can touch my soul.
HEINE’S “FLYING DUTCHMAN.”
While writing this, Wagner told me, that then for the first time did music speak to him in plain language. The subjects poured hot out of his heart as molten metal from a furnace. It was not music he wrote, but the sorrows of his soul that transformed themselves into sounds. His illness lasted for about a week, the erysipelas attacking his face and head. The forced reflection upon the past that his confinement induced was bitter, but his floating ideas about the poetic drama were cemented. That sick-chamber was the hothouse of the “romantic” Wagner. There the revolutionary views first gathered strength and the germs of the “art of the future” consolidated themselves. All his thoughts and feelings upon the future he communicated to his gentle nurse, Minna, who was always a ready listener to his seemingly random talk. This quality of “a good listener,” of always lending a sympathetic ear, was perhaps more soothing and valuable than a criticising, discerning companion might have been to him, especially during his days of sickness. He had also another ever-ready and attentive auditor, his dog, the companion of his voyage from Riga to London and thence to Paris. How fond he was of that dumb brute! The innumerable times he addressed it as if it were a human being! And Wagner was not forgetful of its memory. During the worst hours of want he wrote for a newspaper a short story entitled, “The end of a German Musician in Paris”; in that one sees with what affection he regarded his devoted friend. The principal character in this realistic romance is himself, whom he causes to die through starvation. In that the sorrow and suffering endured by Wagner are set forth in a manner thattouches one to the quick. As soon as he was sufficiently recovered, he did not, as the majority of natures would have done, rest from all active mental work, but at once vigorously attacked his unfinished “Rienzi,” the remaining acts of which were completed by the end of the year 1840. A curious fate Wagner’s. He had embarked upon a hazardous voyage to the French capital with the view of producing “Rienzi” there, and yet no sooner was the work quite finished than he despatched it to Germany, hoping to get it performed at Dresden. A glance at the music reveals the gulf that separates the Wagner of the first two acts—composed before he came to Paris—from the writer of the remaining three. Yet another composition, a complete opera, was given to the world in Paris in the end of 1841. It has the unique distinction of being the work of Wagner that occupied the shortest time in writing. From the time of its inception—I am now speaking only of the music—to its completion, about seven weeks sufficed for the work. The poem had been completed some months earlier. He had submitted “Rienzi” to the director of the grand opera, who gave him no tangible hope of its being accepted, but promised to do his best in producing a shorter opera by him. This engagement on the part of the director, though not couched in unequivocal terms, was not to be allowed to drop. Wagner went to Heine and discussed the situation. Among the subjects proposed for an opera was Heine’s own treatment of the romantic legend of “The Flying Dutchman” and his spectral crew. The story was not new to Wagner. He had heard it for the first time from the lips of the sailorson his voyage to London. Then it had impressed him. Now it took hold of him.
How this legend of the ill-fated mariner came to form the basis of an opera text is curious and interesting. There are few, perhaps, who have any notions from what crude material the significant “Dutchman,” as we know it, was fashioned.
There existed in England, and a copy can still be obtained from French, the Strand theatrical publisher, a melodramatic burlesque by Fitzball, a prolific writer for the English stage, entitled “Vanderdecken, or The Phantom Ship.” To mention the names of three of the original dramatis personae, Captain Peppersal, the father of the Senta, Von Swiggs, a drunken Dutchman in love with Senta, and Smutta, a black servant, the character and mode of treatment of the story will be at once perceived. Vanderdecken retains much of the legendary lore with which we are accustomed to surround him, except that Fitzball causes him occasionally to appear and disappear in blue and red fire. Vanderdecken too is under a spell; the utterance of a single word though it be joy at his acceptance by Senta, will consign him again to his terrible fate for another thousand years.
WAGNER’S “FLYING DUTCHMAN.”
It was a perusal of this medley, of the spectral and burlesque, which led Heine to treat the story after his own heart, and it was the discussion with the poet that determined Wagner in his choice of subject. The libretto was finished and delivered to the director, who, whilst expressing entire satisfaction at the work, only asked its price so that he might deliver it to a composer to whom a text had been promised, and whose opera had the next right of being accepted. The poem wasnot sold, and Wagner turned again to his “arranging” drudgery. Later, however, he retook his text. The subject-legend was in the highest manner adapted for musical treatment. Whilst writing the poem he had felt in a very different mood than when writing the “Rienzi” text. In the latter, his object was a story so arranged as would admit of the then orthodox operatic treatment with its set forms of solos, choruses, ensembles, etc., etc. Wagner was a man of thought. He did not perform things in a haphazard manner. He saw his mark and flew to it. The historic opera, he reasoned, demanded a precise and careful treatment of detail incidents. This was not the province of music. The tonal art was a medium for the expression of feelings, to illustrate the workings of the heart. Now with legend the conditions are entirely opposite to those demanded by the historic opera. It is of no consequence among what people a particular legend originated. Place and period are equally unimportant. Romantic legends possess this superlative advantage over historical subjects; no matter when the period, or where the place, or who the people, the legends are invested with none of the trammelling conditions of nationality or epoch, but treat exclusively of that which is human. This is an immense gain to both poet and musician. By this process of reasoning, Wagner gradually came to exclude word-repetition. In the “Dutchman” much verbal reiteration is still indulged in; but the story and treatment show us the real Wagner of the future.
As to the composition of the music, I have heard so much from Wagner on this particular opera, to convince me that, though it occupied but a few weeks, it was notdone without much careful thought. The scaffolding upon which it was constructed is very clear. Indeed, the “make” of the whole work is most transparent. There are three chief subjects. (1) Senta’s song, (2) Sailor’s and (3) Spinning chorus, and those have been woven into an organic whole by thoughtful work.
In the summer of 1866, I was sitting with Wagner at dinner in his house at Munich. It chanced that the conversation turned upon the weary mariner, his yearning for land and love, and Wagner’s own longing for his fatherland at the time he composed the “Dutchman,” when going to a piano that stood near him, he said, “The pent-up anguish, the homesickness that then held complete possession of me, were poured out in this phrase,”—playing the short cadence of two bars thrice repeated that preludes Vanderdecken’s recital to Daland of his woeful wanderings. “At the end of the phrase, on the diminished seventh, in my mind I paused and brooded over the past, the repetitions, each higher, interpreting the increased intensity of my sufferings,” and, Wagner went on, that with each note he originally intended that Vanderdecken should move but one step, and move only in time with the music. Now this careful premeditated tonal working in the young man of twenty-eight is indicative, as much as any portion of Wagner is, of hisstyle, a word of pregnant meaning when used in relation to Wagner’s works.
HE LEAVES PARIS.
The “Dutchman” was written at Mendon, a village about five miles from Paris. It was composed at the piano. This incident is of importance, since for several months he had not written a note, and knew not whether he still possessed the power of composing. He had leftParis because of the noise and bustle, and to his horror discovered that his new landlord was a collector of musical instruments, so there was little likelihood of securing the quietude he so much desired. When the work was finished, conscious that realistic France was not the place where he could produce his poetic ideal, he despatched it to Meyerbeer, then in Germany, whose aid he solicited in getting it performed. Replies were not encouraging. Meanwhile, sorely harassed how to provide life’s necessities, he sold, under pressure, his manuscript of the poem for £20.
The sole ray of hope, the one chance of rescue from this sad plight, lay in “Rienzi.” It had been accepted at Dresden and in the spring of 1842 he was informed that it was about to be put into preparation and his presence would be desirable. He therefore left Paris for Germany after nearly three years of absence.
FROMnow begins a new epoch in Wagner’s life. The call he had received from Dresden filled him with delirious joy. The world was not large enough to hold him. He trod on air. That Dresden, the hallowed scene of Weber’s labours, possessing the then first theatre in Germany, famed alike for its productions, style, and artists, should accept his work, and request his presence to supervise the rehearsals, was an acknowledgment which transformed, as by magic, a sombre, cruel outlook into a gloriously bright and warm future.
He was very sanguine of succeeding with “Rienzi.” It was completely in the style of the foreign operas then in vogue among his countrymen. Germany had no opera of her own. Mozart and Gluck both composed in the French and Italian style, and Meyerbeer, the then ruler of the German operatic stage, fashioned his popular works on the spectacular style of the grand French opera. “Rienzi” was spectacular, with plenty of the same description of material as “Les Huguenots.” So Wagner’s hopes ran high, and a vista of happiness spread itself before him as an enchanted fairy-land.
THE CHOSEN OF DRESDEN.
With joy he took leave of Schlesinger and his few Parisian intimates, and set out for Germany, his fatherland. His fatherland! what a sea of tumultuous feelingsdid that thought of returning home produce in him. He was going back a conqueror. The creative artist was at last recognized; he was rescued from desperate distress at the very moment it seemed as if he were going to succumb to the conflict. It is difficult to at all thoroughly understand what Wagner went through after he had been summoned to Germany. The transformation scene in his life’s drama was taking place. Again and again has he expatiated upon it with an honesty characteristic of him, and with a volubility that laid bare all his heart’s hopes and emotions at the time.
Paris had not accepted him. He came, he saw, but had not conquered. His soul had swelled with artistic ambition; he was enthusiastic, desiring a platform from which to expound his cherished tenets; and Paris ignored him, treated his projects and himself as nought, and for all it cared, he might have perished unheeded, with none but his dog to mourn his loss. And now, from an unacknowledged artist, he was the chosen of celebrated Dresden, still warm with the inspired accents of his “beloved” Weber. Well might he become delirious with joy.
His homeward journey was full of happy incident and profit. He heard his native language again as the common tongue. Of German as a language Wagner was always enamoured. He possessed a large vocabulary himself, was a poet of no mean rank, and had always a wealth of illustration ready at command. Now to hear German spoken about him was delight. He was in a happy frame, ready to be touched with whatever he saw. The Rhine unusually excited him. In later years, when writing of the period, he tells us that at sight of the Rhine he vowed eternal fidelity to his country.He remarked to me, in his poetic language, that its eddying wavelets seemed to be telling him its legends, and dolefully inquiring, Why did you leave us? He was happy to come home. His escape from feverish, sensuous Paris, to his healthy, honest fatherland, was, to use his own graphic analogy, as Tannhäuser emerging from the Venus grotto to breathe the invigorating, bracing atmosphere of the German mountains. It was the awakening from an oppressive nightmare. The unvarnished straightforwardness of the German character welcomed him with the affection of fond parents. With all its rude plainness and stolidity, he loved the German mind. It was sincere, true, and made the French courteous polish, which he had just quitted, seem as a thing unreal, a lacquer, an affection that became offensive.
The return of Wagner and his wife to Dresden was particularly agreeable to the latter. In Dresden, she had a reputation as an actress, though not in the first rank, yet she was somebody, and would be so recognized. Besides, there she could have the respect paid to her due to the wife of the composer of “Rienzi.” Poor Minna! what a patient and gentle woman she was. To hear her unaffected talk of the change in her own position, on their coming to live in Dresden, was touching, indeed. In Paris she had been a drudge, and no one knew but Wagner the half of her heroism, self-denial, and suffering. Now for her, too, the horizon was clearing, and it was with difficulty that she endeavoured to restrain the overflowing hopefulness of Richard. But he would not be repressed, and on nearing Dresden the two who had suffered together consoled and encouraged each other with visions of prospective prosperity.
A VISIT TO REISSIGER.
A change of scene was always conducive to happiness in Wagner. For the first few days he visited well-remembered spots. He had a veritable passion for at once setting off to see familiar places. The joy of Dresden homely life contrasted with the Paris mode of living, acted like a charm on him. His spirits were at their best, his health good, and the kindly greetings he met everywhere worked together to make him thoroughly enjoy life. His sister Rosalie, the actress, was dead, so that all that was really known of him when he came to Dresden was that he was born at Leipzic, had been educated at the Dresden Schule, and had wholly written and composed two operas, and was the brother of the late Rosalie Wagner.
One of his first visits was to Reissiger, chief conductor at the Royal Opera (where Wagner’s “Rienzi” was to be performed), and of the Royal Chapel. Reissiger was some fifteen years older than Richard Wagner. He had been trained in the school of strict fugue and counterpoint at Leipzic, and as a musician was prolific and clever, but lacked poetical inspiration and intellectual power. He was eminently a professor. He received Wagner politely, praised the “Rienzi,” the score of which he knew, but with it all maintained an attitude of reserve. Wagner, who was on the best terms with himself and the world, ready to embrace everybody, was cooled by his reception, and felt that he could never be intimate with Reissiger, who occupied the greater part of their first interview with complaints about his own non-success on the operatic stage, all of which he peevishly attributed to the shortcomings of thelibretti.
If, however, Wagner was disappointed with his probablestanding with Reissiger, he was amply compensated by the warmth and spontaneity of Fischer’s greeting. Fischer was stage manager and chorus director. He was a musician of superior attainments, a man of sound reflection, and felt that theirs was to be a friendship for life. He was enthusiastic about “Rienzi,” foretold a certain success, and showed his earnestness by untiring activity in training the chorus, so important in the new work. He proved of invaluable service to Wagner by describing the character and temperament of the many individuals connected with the theatre with whom he would come into contact.
There was yet another friend who affectionately greeted Wagner. Tichatschek, the “Rienzi” of the forthcoming performance. Tichatschek was of heroic stature, finely proportioned, and dignified in bearing. He was enraptured with his part. He saw in it one which fitted him to perfection, both as to physical appearance and vocal powers, which, in his case, were strong and enduring.
A passing cloud was the absence of the “Adriano,” his womanly ideal, Schroeder-Devrient. But she soon came to Dresden and was present at the “Rienzi” rehearsals. Wagner related to her the episode of theDreadnought, and the fate of her precious gift, the snuff-box, when she pleasantly rejoined that “Rienzi” would produce him a shower of golden snuff-boxes from all the potentates of Germany, so convinced was she of its success.
PRODUCTION OF “RIENZI.”
“Rienzi” was performed at the end of 1842. An unquestioned success, everybody enthusiastic, the orchestra played with an energy that went quite beyond thephlegmatic Reissiger who conducted. Apart from the effective situations, the well-treated story and verve with which the chief characters worked, there is no doubt that a great portion of the success was due to the splendid appearance of Tichatschek. Commanding in stature and clad in glittering armour, possessing a powerful voice which he used to advantage, the audience were enraptured with the hero and cheered him lustily. The processions, the conflagrations, and all those stage effects so skilfully calculated by Wagner and intended for the grand opera house, Paris, appealed to the spectacle-loving portion of the playgoers. The plot, the revolt of an oppressed people, was unquestionably in harmony with the spirit of the period, for revolution was in the air; all over Germany there were disquieting signs. It has often been suggested that “Rienzi” was a confession of faith of Wagner’s political, so-called revolutionary, principles, and was a forecast of the democratic storm of 1848, but it need scarcely be said that it was mere coincidence.
I have now arrived at the time when my own acquaintance with Richard Wagner began. It was in the beginning of the spring of 1843. Wagner had been appointed in January of that year co-chief conductor at the opera with Reissiger, but the superiority of his intellectual and artistic abilities over the homespun plebeian Reissiger soon gave him the first position in Dresden. Their second in command was August Roeckel. Roeckel was my most intimate friend. We were of the same age, and had but one judgment upon music. He was the nephew of Nepomuck Hummel and possessed much of the talent of that celebrated pianist. He was also a composer of merit; indeed, it was by reason of the soundmusicianly skill displayed in his opera “Farinelli” that he was appointed second music director at Dresden, similarly as Wagner had been appointed chief director through the success of “Rienzi.” The director of the opera had accepted “Farinelli” and announced a performance, but so dazzled was Roeckel by the brilliancy of Wagner’s genius that he withdrew “Farinelli” and would under no circumstances permit its production. This act of self-effacement accurately paints the character of the over-modest man. Between Wagner and Roeckel the closest intimacy sprang up. Through all that stormy period of the revolution, Wagner thought and spoke of none other as he did of Roeckel. They were twin souls. For range of knowledge, active intelligence, and similarity of thought, Wagner had met with no one more congenial to him, and, I must add, none worshipped Wagner as August Roeckel did. He had resided in London and Paris, and the literature of both countries was as familiar to him as that of his native land. The first description I had of Richard Wagner was from August Roeckel. I had such complete confidence in his perception and judgment that I was at once won over to Wagner’s side by the tone of hero-worship that pervaded the letter. Happily it has been preserved and I now reproduce it:—
INFLUENCE OF ROECKEL.
At last fortune smiles on me. Think, I have been appointed Sachsischer music director, at the head of the most celebrated orchestra of Germany, no longer doomed to give lessons, my horror and abomination. “Farinelli,” after all, was the right thing, but what chiefly reminds me of your perspicacity was the encouragement in regard to my pianoforte playing. Now that is of the greatest importance in helping me to establishing a name here. It was but natural that I doubted my gift as a pianist, when Edward (his brother)was the favourite of uncle “Hummel,” but when at Vienna, I remembered your prophecy, and worked at the piano harder than ever, and now it stands me in good stead. Henceforth, I drop myself into a well, because I am going to speak of the man whose greatness overshadows that of all other men I have met, either in France or England,—our new friend, Richard Wagner. I say advisedly, our friend, for he knows you from my description as well as I do. You cannot imagine how the daily intercourse with him develops my admiration for his genius. His earnestness in art is religious; he looks upon the drama as the pulpit from which the people should be taught, and his views on a combination of the different arts for that purpose opens up an exciting theory, as new as it is ideal. You would love him, aye, worship him as I do, for to gigantic powers of intellect he unites the sportive playfulness of a child. I have a great advantage over him in piano-playing. It seems strange, but his playing is ludicrously defective; so much so, that when anything is to be tried I take the piano and my sight-reading seems to please him vastly.Dresden, March, 1843.
At last fortune smiles on me. Think, I have been appointed Sachsischer music director, at the head of the most celebrated orchestra of Germany, no longer doomed to give lessons, my horror and abomination. “Farinelli,” after all, was the right thing, but what chiefly reminds me of your perspicacity was the encouragement in regard to my pianoforte playing. Now that is of the greatest importance in helping me to establishing a name here. It was but natural that I doubted my gift as a pianist, when Edward (his brother)was the favourite of uncle “Hummel,” but when at Vienna, I remembered your prophecy, and worked at the piano harder than ever, and now it stands me in good stead. Henceforth, I drop myself into a well, because I am going to speak of the man whose greatness overshadows that of all other men I have met, either in France or England,—our new friend, Richard Wagner. I say advisedly, our friend, for he knows you from my description as well as I do. You cannot imagine how the daily intercourse with him develops my admiration for his genius. His earnestness in art is religious; he looks upon the drama as the pulpit from which the people should be taught, and his views on a combination of the different arts for that purpose opens up an exciting theory, as new as it is ideal. You would love him, aye, worship him as I do, for to gigantic powers of intellect he unites the sportive playfulness of a child. I have a great advantage over him in piano-playing. It seems strange, but his playing is ludicrously defective; so much so, that when anything is to be tried I take the piano and my sight-reading seems to please him vastly.
Dresden, March, 1843.
My correspondence with August Roeckel was at this period a large one. He had a religious reverence for the gift, intellectual attainments, and eloquence of his new friend, topics which constitute the main theme of his letters. That Roeckel had an equal sway over Wagner in another direction, viz. politics, arose, too, from that same earnest enthusiasm, the parent of Wagner’s own successful art efforts. It is necessary that I should explain that Roeckel was Wagner’s shadow. They were inseparable, visiting each other during the day and at the theatre together at night. They had, so Wagner told me afterwards, a life in common. He was as much fired by Roeckel’s wealth of literary lore, his heroic notions of life and duty, and the claim of a people to be well governed, as Roeckel was sympathetic andappreciative of those art theories which, according to Wagner, formed the upper stratum of man’s existence. Roeckel’s view is therefore the judgment of Wagner’s other self, and as such has a right of existence here. It is full of warm interest about Wagner, who, in later years, greatly enjoyed the perusal of the correspondence. The absolute worship of Roeckel for his chief shows itself in the following letter written under the influence of early relations:—